


your throat, when exposed, looks like a crime

by scorpiod



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Ableist Language, Blow Jobs, Homophobic Language, M/M, Marking, Past Child Abuse, Pre-Series, Underage Drinking, Underage Sex, Violence, underage incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 15:45:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2197500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpiod/pseuds/scorpiod
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>High school is a joke. They aren't going anywhere, certainly not to college. Everyone knows all Geckos end up in the same place; in jail or in the ground. Seth thinks they may as well earn it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your throat, when exposed, looks like a crime

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Spoilers up to _Boxman_ for flashback reasons but otherwise, but otherwise set entirely pre-series.
> 
> 2\. Thank you to my lovely beta [opheliahyde](http://archiveofourown.org/users/opheliahyde); this fic would not exist without her.

“This place is a shithole,” Seth complains, kicking the ground and scuffing up his already dirty and worn shoes. The white edges of his shoes are already more brown than their original color, the rubber torn and curling at the edges. Seth needs new ones, but thrift store shoes never last long and stealing another pair is trickier than it used to be.

Seth is smiling as he says it, but it’s a nasty kind of smile, like he wants to take something apart with it.

“You’d have to be more specific,” Richie says, only giving him a side glance, focused more on getting home, but he knows what Seth means. It’s not the first time Seth’s said the same thing, coming home from school. He hates the place, he knows, Seth doesn’t have the patience Richie does.

“I just mean,” Seth says, hands in his hoodie pocket and grinning at Richie—a scary kind of _let’s go start some shit_ grin that worries Richie at his best and excites him at his worst, that makes him want to meet him teeth for teeth and start some shit with him. “We could probably do better things with our time than going to class and—”

“You’re going to school,” Richie snaps at him. He knows where this is going now, Seth’s lack of patience for high school and the way he eagerly counts down the days until he’s old enough to drop out. Whatever anticipation Richie was feeling gives way to some confusing emotion he can’t name—anger, irritation, and worry all at once. It’s easier to catalogue what his body is doing than to name it—face flushed, heart pumping, and guts churning.

Seth just has that effect on him.

Seth opens the door for him when they arrive, leaning casually against the frame, quiet but otherwise unaffected by Richie’s snappish tone. He watches as Richie cleans his feet on the mat in front of the door before entering their tiny apartment. It’s a hole in the wall studio, several stories high without an elevator and a broken heater. The slumlord didn’t care about their forged paperwork or how young they were, as long as he got his money every month (and he did, one way or another, through petty theft and pickpocketing, con after con—money was always tight but by god, Richie and Seth came up with enough for rent somehow).

It was cramped and cold but it was better than sleeping outside on a park bench, running from the cops.

Seth hangs behind on the threshold for a few seconds longer than he should.

“I won’t be fifteen forever,” he says softly.

*

They used to live with Uncle Eddie, after the fire. It was nicer, for sure, there was no spare bedroom for them but they slept on the moth eaten, fold out couch, and they could watch TV when Eddie was asleep as long as the volume was on low enough. Eddie left them alone about half the time, whenever he had to take off for a job or just lie low away from K.C. for a bit.

The other half of the time, he just wasn’t sure or wasn’t willing to be a parent, keeping a distance from the two of them except to tell them stories about jobs he’s pulled or people he’s met, the two of them listening like they could soak up all the tips and tricks of the trade from him. Eddie was never as bad as Ray, his rules simple ( _don’t make too much noise; don’t wreck any of my shit; don’t steal any of my shit—other people’s shit is fine, though—and don’t bring the cops down on us_ ). He didn’t even mind Seth sneaking a beer or two out of the fridge every now and then.

Leaving Eddie’s place was never about him, or his apartment; it was about the two of them, and how suffocating it was to sneak around Eddie whenever he was here, trying not to wake him up while they jerked each other off under the covers, with hands on their mouths and the TV on as a distraction. It was about the lies they told Eddie about the hickeys on Seth’s throat, that Uncle Eddie must have known was bullshit, eying them with a concerned expression furrowing his brow.

Then Eddie caught them fucking around with their dicks out on his couch and he couldn’t look them in the eye after that. It made it easier to leave, take off, find a place just for them, no matter how hard it was, even if they had to sleep and sneak into school early to use the gym showers for awhile.

 _Just you and me, buddy_ , they told each other a whispered declaration, more than a promise, a new doctrine to live their lives by.

Uncle Eddie may have been family, but Seth was everything.

*

They never share a class together, which is something that bothers them both—the separation, not being in step for once, Richie getting sophomore course materials while Seth is still a freshman.

 _Seth would probably throw spitballs at the back of my head_ , Richie thinks, smiling in the middle of class despite himself.

It bothers Seth more though, Richie can tell. Seth’s never in a good mood at school, always spoiling for a fight, waiting for someone to look at his small size and scrawniness, and think he’d be an easy target. If Richie cared enough, he’d pity the person who decides to pick a fight with him, but he’s all out of pity for other people. Mostly he’s just glad Seth doesn’t outright start fights, they don’t need that kind of attention.

 _Easy, easy_ , Richie doesn’t tell him, but he puts his hand on his shoulders and steers him away from class, from a locker. He can feel the tense, negative energy leaving Seth’s shoulders when he touches him, like flipping a switch, even if Richie’s grip is too tight at times.

(Seth is much smaller than him, bonier; he’s getting bigger now, creeping up in height, but he’s still skinny. Richie has already gotten broad and filled out, sixteen years old and feeling too young for his body, his size alien to him as he stares in the mirror, trying to make sense of it— _Puberty is good to you_ , Seth says, staring at him too, lingering glances while Richie shoves on his clothes in the morning; stares that become touches, running a curious hand down his chest in the morning, slow and careful while Richie shivers)

They have lunch out back near the track, next to the baseball diamond, both of them squatted under bleachers that hide them from the rest of the world, chewing on the grainy school lunch that tasted more like cardboard than bread. Before Seth got to high school with him, this place was full of stoners and druggies finding a quiet spot to be get high and be left alone. Richie chased them off (it wasn’t hard—after setting his father on fire, not much strikes him as hard, or too much, too far). 

Now it’s just his. _Theirs_.

“I hate this fucking shithole,” Seth says, for the 38th time, pulling up at the grass like he’s looking for something to destroy, dirt getting under his nails and on his knuckles. There are grass stains on his jeans. There are no bruises on his face, no cuts, his knuckles looking unscathed, but he’s covered in dirt.

“What’s twisting your panties?” Richie asks dryly.

“Nothing,” Seth snarls. His face softens when he looks at Richie, not quite calm but softer. Younger, but Seth always look young to him. “Torrence is a being a fucker, that’s all.”

“Ah,” Richie says, nodding. Seth’s always had a hard time with math. “Wanna blow out his tires?” He asks.

“I want to do something more than that,” Seth says viciously, brown eyes hard and flashing when he looks at Richie, fist clenched.

Spoiling for a fight. Or something more.

They end up stealing the math teacher’s car. It’s old hat to them now, both of them good at grand theft auto, but it still makes Seth grin and that makes Richie grin too—the infectious energy, the adrenaline seeping into them both and turning them breathless and horny, low grade arousal that curls in their guts (they always get like this, like a flip of a switch, turning everything on high). They drive up to some abandoned vacant lot, where only drug dealers and lowlives gathered for deals and trades and other nefarious deeds.

( _I guess we’re the criminal element_ , Seth told him when they first found this place, grinning at him, turning Richie’s chest warm and his lips twisting up into a smile; he doesn’t know why he’s smiling, but Seth always makes him)

Seth takes the car apart then, pulling parts out of the hood; Seth already mastered the art of stealing a car when he was thirteen, and now he was figuring out how to fix it, what breaks a car, what keeps it from falling apart, what holds it together. You never know when a mechanic's skill could come in handy.

“You could just take an autoshop class,” Richie tells him, smoking and lounging against the side of the car-soon-to-be-scrap-heap while watching Seth work. Seth’s hands are stained greasy and black, and there’s a smudge of it on his face, under his eye.

“That’s not until next year,” Seth says off-hand, driving a wrench into the car, twisting.

“Well, you’ll be here next year, right?” Richie asks, even though Seth turns sixteen later this semester. It won’t be freshmen year for much longer anymore, really.

Seth glances up like he wants to argue, but he stops, eyes drawn to the cigarette in Richie’s mouth; staring at his lips while Richie stares at the grease stains on Seth’s cheeks.

In the end, they blow the fucker up, dose it with gasoline and light it with Richie’s lighter, watching it burn together.

*

“We should have kept the car,” Seth tells him, leaning against the side of the door while Richie pulls out the keys to their apartment. The key’s jingle in Richie’s hands but all he can think about is how Seth smells, burnt and smokey and thick, like Richie’s cigarettes or the aftermath of an explosion, caught in the back of his throat. _He smells like the scene of their crime_ , he thinks, finding it oddly fitting, Richie torn between shoving him in the shower to wash it off him or letting it linger, cling to them both.

Richie laughs instead. “Why? It was a shit car to begin with.”

Seth shrugs, his shoulders moving up and down. Richie doesn’t look at him but it draws the eyes anyway, the small movement—always keeping Seth in the corner of his eyes. “Maybe I want to fuck you in one.”

Richie stops the key in the hole and arches his eyebrow at his brother. Seth is casual and nonchalant, arms folded, staring up at Richie like it’s a challenge, crooked half smile on his face. He has grime and dirt and oil still smudged on his face, hair a mess but even the half smile hits Richie in his gut like a suckerpunch, churning with arousal that’s been buzzing inside him since they stole the car, half hard and ready. Seth’s strength has always been in his words.

Richie turns away, opens the door, and kisses Seth the moment he gets them inside—presses him against the door when he closes it shut, like a switch flicking in his mind. He barely has a moment to savor Seth looking up at him, the quick glance and cut off laugher when he realizes what Richie is doing, caught between the door and Richie’s broad body. It makes his breath catch in his throat, insides buzzing, right and wrong all at once ( _don’t kiss your brother, don’t push him walls, don’t touch his cock, don’t let him touch your cock_ —rules Richie knew, but they never seemed to exist for him and Seth; rules were always there to be broken and blown away). He puts his hands on Seth’s face, tilting his head up but there’s no need—Seth surges into it like he already saw it coming, waiting for it, hands knotting in Richie’s hair, moaning in his mouth as if to say _what took you so fucking long?_

He can’t kiss Seth outside, not without being quick and making sure no one will find them—there are too many eyes, too many people, and he’s too goddamn terrified someone will take Seth away. One wrong step, and it’ll be over, just like that—but in here is their apartment, past the threshold of their home, Richie can kiss his brother all he wants, can touch his brother all he wants. Seth writhes and arches and grinds his crotch into his, throwing his whole body into the kiss and Richie tries to devour it all like he could keep this inside him, lock it down tight and keep it safe with him ( _they’re responsible for each other, the two them, entrusted to each other, because who the fuck else was going to take care of them_ ).

“You should steal a better car to fuck me in,” Richie says instead of telling him what a stupid idea that is, half drunk on Seth’s mouth already.

“Oh, trust me, brother, I plan to,” Seth says, biting his lip and grinning.

Maybe, if Richie didn’t want to take the risk, maybe he should have never kissed his brother in the first place.

(Seth wants to drop out of school and it doesn’t matter how much Richie tells him no, how can he say _don’t do that_ when they already do so much shit they shouldn’t do and Richie never stops them at all)

*

It’s not as if Richie is overly fond of school either. It’s not just Seth that hates the public school system—they all have to endure some shit.

Seth’s favorite subject is English; according to him, it’s because no one bothers him in class and he can bullshit the papers. Richie knows that it’s Theater, though, that stupid elective he got assigned to and never wanted; Seth never says it out loud, but he loves it, good at it, acting and playing a role, comes alive during the brief glimpses Richie’s caught of his performance when he came to get him from class, the last one of the day. Seth’s going to be in a play in about a month before the school year ends. Richie will go, of course; it might be the only one Seth will ever do.

Richie doesn’t really have a favorite subject. Mostly, he likes reading, and he likes learning new things, but the key word is _learning_. Most of the teachers are too full of shit to really pass on anything of value.

In history, Richie spends most of the time reading his book, tuning out the teacher and his lecture. He’s further ahead than the rest of the class and answers all the questions right when called on. He grades on a curve and Richie always sets it.

The rest of the class hates him for that, but they hate him more for not being friendly, for not being willing to strike up a friendship and tell the others his secret. For being that freak in the back of the class with a book who never speaks unless spoken to.

In chemistry, they are doing an experiment, creating a small fountain with ammonia and water, demonstrating what happens when you add ammonia too quickly to water. It’s cute. It’s easy. Which means it’s uninteresting. Surrounded by all these atoms and chemical reactions, compounds and bonds, and this is what they do.

“This is boring,” Richie says. He’s not Seth, who can’t sit still—Seth has a hard time casing places because it requires too much stillness, a clear head and a calm mind—but it’s boring work, he knows when it sees it, and just because he can be still doesn’t mean he doesn’t get restless. “This is AP chem, we should be doing something better.”

(AP Chem is a joke, which makes sense; a class to get credits for a college he’ll never be able to go to. It’s hilarious, really, if you get the punchline)

His lab partner—Jenny Slater, ash brown hair and thick eyebrows, acne outbreaks on the daily, but one of the few people he can even stand to be around at school. Jenny is a good lab partner in the sense that she rarely says anything and gets all her work done, and doesn’t try to leech off his lab reports and ride his coat tails. She can actually do her own work. He wouldn’t go as far to call her a friend, but there are worse people to sit next to all semester.

“What wouldn’t be boring, then?” she asks. Her conversations are all quick and to the point, just like his, though he doesn’t know why. Maybe Jenny is shy or maybe she just doesn’t like to talk, finds it useless—or maybe it’s him, Richie can’t tell. It all looks the same to him. He’s bad at reading faces, not like Seth.

She tries to hold his gaze, though, when she asks a question, her eyes meeting his despite Richie’s best efforts to avoid eye contact. It always makes him feel itchy and uncomfortable, like crawling out of his skin (everyone does this to him; Seth is the only one Richie doesn’t feel like turning away from). He holds her gaze without saying a word— _that’s what you’re supposed to do, make eye contact, that’s what normal people do_ —but he’s relieved when she looks down and breaks away first.

Richie shrugs. “Making soap. Something useful.” _Make a bomb, maybe_ , but he knows better than to say that out loud, in ear range of other students.

 _Learn to make thermite_ , ideally, but he’s going to have to teach himself that.

His lab partner’s eyebrows shoot up into her skull. It makes her look like her eyes are too wide, about to pop out, something a little grotesque in the gesture but more open than normal, more expressive. Her hair not falling in her face. Maybe that’s just what people’s eyes look like without glasses.

“Can you make soap?” she asks.

Richie can’t help the smile on his face, something like smug satisfaction when he looks at her. “It’s not hard. They made a movie about it, you know.”

“Really?”

He shrugs. “I can make a lot of things.”

He is trying to brag, he thinks, but he doesn’t know how to say, _I can make a molotov cocktail. It’s a step up from using lighter fluid._

Jenny smiles at him. Sometimes she does that, smile at him, and Richie thinks he should smile back but he knows whenever he tries, it comes out more like a grimace. Like something is wrong with the muscles under his skin and they don’t form quite right.

Jenny’s smile is tentative and slow, he thinks, stretching out her mouth and showing her front teeth. “Maybe you should show me the movie,” she says, leaning in closer.

The ammonia hits his nose, smells like cat piss, really.

“It was a shit movie,” he says and inches away, because she’s starting to make him uncomfortable. Skin too close. Body too close. He only wants Seth this close, or someone at the edge of his knife.

She stares at him funny, head cocked, eyebrows knitted. Richie wishes he could understand her expression, that he had some code to decipher her.

“What are you doing after school?” she asks.

“Walking my brother home,” he says, wondering if he should start to work on his alibi or not. It’s true, at least. He doesn’t plan on robbing any place today.

“Do you wanna get a burger or something?”

“No,” he says. He just told her, he’s walking Seth home.

Jenny shrinks and pulls away. She doesn’t speak to him for the rest of class.

“She was _flirting_ with you, fuck face,” Seth tells him later, cracking up. He throws a peanut up in the air and tries to catch it with his mouth. It lands on the grass. _Don’t put it in your mouth_ , Richie is going to tell him, but Seth does it anyway and he knows he’ll just claim five second rule.

“Are you sure?”

“She wants to go on a date with you, moron,” Seth says, punching his shoulder—well, more like nudging his fist against his shoulder. The fist becomes an open hand and pretty soon he’s just wrapping his fingers around the bones of his shoulder, holding him steady. “She asked you out to lunch, brother—”

“It’s not lunch if it’s after noon. It’s not dinner either, it’s some weird midday thing—”

“Whatever, you get my point,” Seth interrupts him. He makes a contorted face, lips puckering to exaggerated heights. “She wants to _kiiiissss_ you.”

“Shut up,” Richie says, shaking Seth’s hand off. “Are you sure she just...didn’t want to have a burger? In general?”

It didn’t make sense to him. He’s not sure why a girl— _why anyone_ —would want to go out on a date with him.

It’s not that he’s insecure, not like the other assholes at this school—he’s never given enough of a shit about that, never thought about it deeply, there were always other priorities—it’s just that he knows he’s not pleasant company. He’s aware of this. There’s a reason why Seth is really the only one he can tolerate (and why Seth is the only one who can tolerate him).

“It’s not like it’s weird. I want to have a burger with you.”

Richie wrinkles his nose. “You’re my brother, you don’t count.”

Seth throws a peanut at his head. “I just mean. You’re hot—”

Richie cringes when he says that. He tries not to think about other times Seth has said that, whispered it into his ear while touching his cock, telling him how glad he was that Richie had grown out of his awkward phase.

“—and you’re smart and you dress like a dork, but you’re neat about it at least and it’s cool a girl realized what a catch my brother is.”

Richie feels his face go hot. He thinks about that for a long while, not taking a bite out of his sandwich.

“Should I have said yes?” Richie asks, because he needs Seth to tell him these things—the proper way to act, what to say to certain people, how to act _normal_. Richie can figure out a lot of things like it’s second nature, but he’s lost without Seth.

Seth’s smile turns sharp, his eyes darkening. He cups his face with his other hand, makes Richie look down on him. Richie’s skin feels feverish and hot where Seth touches him—but he always does when Seth touches him, hands like rope tied around his wrists.

“Of course not, brother. You are, in fact, supposed to walk me home, remember?”

Richie sighs in relief, because that feels like the right answer. He knew that was the right answer.

(he’s not sure how he’s supposed to navigate this without Seth here with him)

*

The washer/dryer hook ups in the basement of their apartment complex need to be replaced. The dryer is too loud and the washing machine makes strange, spurting noises from time to time, like a death rattle, someone about to die and giving out their last breath.

“Piece of shit,” Seth mutters under his breath, in long suffering tone of someone used to pieces of shit, almost fond as he stares at the washing machine. Sometimes it stops entirely and Seth kicks the washing machine with a loud, satisfying thunk. It whirrs back to life and Seth grins, proud of himself, banging the top of it with his elbow for good measure.

Richie arches an eyebrow, leaning against the opposite wall, rapping his fingers against the wall because his hands want something to do and he is all out of cigarettes. Seth shrugs, tapping the washing machine and hopping on it, like he was trying and testing it, trying to smooth out its shape.

Richie chuckles, stays where he is, cocking his head to watch Seth’s face, the lines and shape of it, the small curve of his lip. The way his fingers curl on the washing machine, the expression—lines fading away as he leans back on the machine and parts his legs, smiling gently at Richie.

It’s not hard to read Seth at all. Seth is loud and vividly alive, bursting with energy, hands constantly moving, hands constantly touching him.

“Someone could walk in, Seth,” Richie says softly, glancing at the door. It’s closed and late, but sometimes someone comes in, finds the two of them occupying the machines and walks off. Sometimes drug dealers use this spot to make their deals, later at night, but they could be early.

But it wouldn’t be the first time they did this here.

“It’s just us, Richie,” Seth whispers, his voice the barest sound. Waiting. Richie knows the game Seth is playing, but it still sways. “C’mere.”

Richie tries to look away but he steps towards Seth instead, like Seth’s voice is a physical thing, tugging him closer to his brother like a string tied to them both, inextricable from each other.

He steps closer until he’s in between Seth’s spread legs—his legs hooking around his hips and Seth’s arms wrapping around his shoulders, too many limbs wrapped around him. It makes Richie smile, despite himself, when Seth touches him, like he’s lighting him up, heat coursing through his skin and veins and blood. The washing machine vibrates underneath them both, shaking them and sending constant tremors through both their skins.

Richie presses close enough to feel Seth’s hard-on against his own, but he could already tell he was hard from his dilated eyes that hold his gaze, the way he tilted his neck back like an invitation. Richie leans in and licks the hot skin there. He can’t resist biting down a bit, letting his teeth make an imprint, and cherishes the groan Seth makes, wants to swallow it up and keep it with him.

“Richie,” Seth moans, his fingers curling in and wrinkling Richie’s shirt. He lifts up his hips, grinding their cocks against each other through the clothes until they both gasp and pant into each other’s mouths—they’re gonna ruin these pants just as they’re washing the old ones, but Richie goes on sucking another bruise into Seth’s skin.

(turns out, he cares about someone walking in, but not nearly enough)

*

Sunday mornings, they both get up at the crack of dawn. Earlier even, before the sun rises.

Seth is not a morning person—neither of them are, really, but Seth is always the one who kicks and curls in the sheets before school, but he gets up for this without complaint. 

It’s a two man job. One to look out and one to make the grab.

They go a few blocks east, getting further into the less cleaned up parts of town—their part of town, really, where it smells like industry and paint thinner and the scent of a nearby junk yard carries over from blocks away. It’s a pretty shit bakery, all things considered, but the nicer ones have better security, and the food isn’t bad, especially when it’s all fresh.

( _“Got your balls on?” Seth says to him right before, less of a question and more of a chant, and Richie nods; “Screwed on tight,” he concurs, the words like a ritual, reassuring even when they shouldn’t be_ )

Richie is the look out, because Seth is smaller and faster, easier for him to sneak in and make the grab. Seth has a younger face and people are more inclined to let a boy caught stealing go than a bigger guy like Richie (Seth is better at stalling though, if need be, but there’s always some risk with the job).

At ten past six, every Sunday morning, a delivery truck comes by, and the owner of the one man bakery steps out for a moment, long enough for Seth to slip inside. It takes two minutes tops, while the owner and the delivery man unload, chat about some stupid bullshit, for Seth to grab what they need.

They get away clean—they usually do, they’re careful about this, if not other things; they never take too much, not enough to cause a stir, not enough time for it—and for breakfast they have sweet smelling, fresh baked french bread, a flaky croissant and a buttery cinnamon roll. Sometimes it’s enough to last for a few days, a week even if they’re careful.

They make do, the two of them. They’ve always have.

*

Richie leaves a mark on Seth’s throat in the shape of his mouth, dark and bruised purple.

(they’ve done this before, Seth and Richie leaving their marks all over each other—like sharing blood isn’t enough for them, like Seth needs to reach out and rub his fingers on the back of Richie’s neck to leave a smear of sweat in the shape of his fingerprints. They got scars from other people, Ray and fights and accidents—but the best ones are the ones they leave on each other)

Richie pushes too much, bites too hard, sucks until he can see his imprint under his skin. He knows he shouldn’t ( _it’s risky; it’s dangerous_ ) but he doesn’t apologize for it—they both know he wouldn’t mean it if he did, and Seth never told him no.

It’s a punch in the gut whenever he sees the sight of it, his breath getting stuck on the way out of his mouth and nose. Seth tilts his throat back and there it is, bare and exposed and in his face, something shameless and crass about it. The dark red looks like blood against his skin and Richie wants to rub his fingers against it to see if it’d smear ( _it is blood—exploded capillaries and all the blood seeped into the surrounding tissue, clotting under his skin, but sometimes it looks wet. fresh and slick_ ).

In the morning before class, Richie grabs Seth’s chin and tilts his head up to get a better look at it, the dark purpling marks on his tender flesh. It’s fading a little, _healing_ , and that makes him want to bite down and sink his teeth in, to make sure it stays, doesn’t heal just yet.

Something seizes in Richie’s throat when he looks at. He can’t speak, the words have gone all out of him. It’s not a rational feeling.

“The fuck, Richie?” Seth asks but his voice is soft, lilting, his head moving with Richie’s fingers, going where he drags him. He’s used to it. Seth stares up at Richie as Richie stares down and looks at the mark he made.

“You should cover that up,” Richie says, absently, like an afterthought. _He should, but he won’t; they both know that._

Seth shrugs, mouth twisted up in a smirk, tongue darting out to lick his lips. “Maybe you shouldn’t pick the highest spot on my neck to leave a hickey.”

Something dark and warm curls in his belly at the wods, pleased. Seth doesn’t say anything else as Richie’s fingers linger.

( _You’re such a freak_ , Seth said once, while laughing and Richie threw a cheeto at his face: _I’ve never heard a complaint out of you._

 _Well I didn’t say I wasn’t a freak too_.)

Seth goes to school with that on his throat. It’s not the first time. Seth never tells him if people whisper about it or not, if anyone wants to know who is kissing Seth when no one is looking. They’re not popular by any stretch of the imagination, and their high school is big enough to get lost in it, but people know their names. Seth’s been in enough fights for the name _Gecko_ to stick out in people’s minds

(Back when they lived with Eddie, he noticed, asked if Seth had a girlfriend, even though he was thirteen and scrawny with a sharp mouth and sharper eyes, and no girl would look twice at him then. Seth said no and didn’t explain otherwise. Richie thinks Eddie knew then, before he ever caught them together.

It was hard to tell though; Eddie seemed uneasy around them since the fire. Like he knew Richie set it, like he knew Ray Gecko wouldn’t die in an accident; guys like Ray don’t die in accidents)

Sometimes Richie’s glad they don’t share a class together; he’d never be able to focus if Seth was there with him. The way he acts at lunch is bad enough—head cocked to the side, staring at him. Seth licking his lips and his fingers absently rubbing his throat, pushing down on the bruise like it feels good, like daring Richie to fuck him on the grass right there.

*

Richie fucking hates career day. What useless waste of time.

He’s always hated that fucking question growing up, ever since he can remember going to school; _what do you want to be when you grow up?_ they ask a classroom full of five year olds and everyone says, _astronaut, actor, teacher, cowboy_ , in loud ringing, childish voices. He and Seth weren’t allowed to be allowed to be loud, they learned that young.

Richie never gave an answer. He couldn’t get the words out of his mouth, couldn’t even draw a picture when they asked him to draw what he wanted, the teacher whispering in hushed terms to others, looking at him like there was something wrong with him.

There was something wrong with him, but they didn’t know what ( _useless fucking teachers, never could pick up on it—isn’t that their job, to notice when kids come to school with bruises and cuts? Is that asking too much?_ ).

He thinks the answer would have been, _not with Ray_ , if he could articulate, and even that seemed like it asking too much. It’s not as if the world was just going to take Ray away from them, just because Richie wanted it.

When it was Seth’s turn in kindergarten, he answered _cat_ , and everyone laughed like he was stupid, but Richie thought was the smartest answer he’d heard. _Be nice to be a cat_ , Seth told him later, _they’re fast and they eat birds and spend all day sleeping and licking themselves; cats don’t need nobody_.

( _What do you wanna be when you grow up, Richie?_ they asked a five year old boy with broken glasses held together with tape and he said nothing and thought _safe_ ).

He contemplates skipping class and staying home, or going to the library instead—he might actually learn something new there—but he goes anyway. Endures the stupid aptitude test, the teacher getting in his face and asking him what are his plans for the future. Richie knows the right answer is _college, grad school, internship_ , but he can’t bring himself to lie like that. The future is a mass of uncertainty and they don’t plan for _five years later_ when they’re just focused on day to day and making sure there’s enough to eat for the week.

Potential is a stupid word, he decides, one he never wants to hear again. _You have so much potential_ , his teacher tells him, her face looking oddly plastic and her teeth too white as she smiles at him, _you always get top marks, you should come by my office, we can figure out a plan for your future_. Richie nods and grits his teeth and doesn’t say anything.

_What do you wanna be when you grow up?_

A better thief than Ray Gecko ever was.

_Where do you see yourself in five years?_

Hopefully not still pickpocketing and conning lowlife scum in dive bars.

He gets a sheet of paper with a list of _career options_ for the future. All Richie sees is black ink on white paper, hollow and empty like everything else.

“What’s that?” Seth asks on the way home, snatching the paper from him before Richie can answer.

“Trash,” Richie says, “throw it away,” but Seth rolls it out, stretches it open, reads it out loud like it’s a more interesting story than it actually is.

“This is kinda of cool,” he says, not watching where he steps, focusing on staying in step with Richie as he reads. “Engineer, computer programmer, actuary—I have no fucking clue what an actuary is—accountant—”

“Just shoot me,” Richie grumbles.

“—math teacher, architect, _architect_? You? You’re gonna build skyscrapers, Richie?” he asks, with a lilting voice and raised eyebrows, half joking and half something else Richie doesn’t want to read into.

Richie snatches the paper back, crumbling it in his hands before he tosses it into the street, waiting for a car to come by and run it over.

“Those tests are such bullshit,” he says. “I don’t even know how I got architect. Didn’t you have to do them?”

Seth shakes his head. “Nah, freshmen don’t have to.”

 _Lucky you_ , Richie thinks, but he can’t make himself say it. He feels like a hypocrite for wishing Seth had a teacher in his face, telling him about his potential, but it won’t happen; Seth is more clever than most of the assholes in his class, but he doesn’t apply himself, Seth coasts and waits to turn sixteen and no one gives a fuck.

No one is going to fight for Seth except him—this is not news, this has been fact since he was small and just learning to speak, but it still makes him angry to think about.

“Well, then, what do you wanna be when you grow up, Seth? “

His brother smiles, like the fucking sun, like it’d burn your eyes right out, ferocious and beautiful. “A bank robber.”

*

Richie took Seth’s knife from him when Seth brought it to school. Or rather, when Seth had the shitty sense to pull it out in a hallway.

Richie snatches it before anyone else can see (his hands nearly fumble it, nearly dropping it on the floor; the crowded hallway is sometimes a blessing, too many other people too wrapped up in their own shit to notice the Gecko brothers handling a switch blade), pockets it and grabs Seth roughly by the arm and drags him away into another hallway, one that’s emptying out. He pushes him against the locker, ignoring the glances of other kids passing.

“You’re going to get expelled,” he hisses into his ear. “Do you really need this shit at school?”

Seth presses his head against the locker, looking up at him, rolling his eyes. His hair falls into his eyes and Richie idly thinks about how he needs a haircut again (Seth gets his hair from their mother; Richie remembers it, from looking at the few pictures he has—thick and curly, turning unmanageably unruly unless he cuts it and keeps it short).

“It pays to be armed,” Seth says. It’s sadly true. People always picking fights with the low-rent kids from the wrong side of the tracks, picking fights with them and haven’t yet learned that’s not a good idea just yet (they’ll figure it out eventually, but Richie doesn’t want Seth expelled for it). “You have your knife on you.”

“I don’t pull it out in the middle of class.”

“I was in the hallway, dipshit,” Seth says, putting his hand on the back of Richie’s neck now, stroking, rubbing his fingers softly on that spot, where hair meets skin, overly sensitive and shuddering.

“No one saw,” Seth says, with the same kind of conman certainty he does while spinning lies for other people. “Can I have it back?”

(Later, years later, Seth will tell him, prison wasn’t that different from high school, to be honest.)

*

Seth always crawls into sleep with him—they share a bed, of course, cheaper to share than buy two beds, Seth a heavy weight on the other half of the bed, or on top of him; sometimes Seth falls asleep on him, like Richie’s body is as good as any pillow, or better. 

But right now, he crawls on him, pressing in too close so Richie can smell the scent of steel, dirt, and sweat, Seth’s weight bearing down on him. He kisses Richie’s throat and nips at collarbone, his body a warm comforting weight, his teeth familiar and welcome. 

“Sorry about that,” he says, voice sleep-heavy and worn. Richie doesn’t know what he’s apologizing for, doesn’t remember nor really care. He forgives him anyway. Richie curls his hands in his hair and lets Seth bite at his throat until there’s a mark, red and stinging, blooming on his pale skin, one Richie will worry about tomorrow. He kisses him then, hard, until he can’t taste anything, but Seth and himself.

(His mouth always tastes like Seth anyway—like the cigarette smoke that Richie inhales deep, but more addictive, more than just a taste, sharp and heavy like the blood under his skin that keeps him alive.)

‘I’m still dropping out,” Seth tells him, later, as Richie’s trying to fall asleep, Seth curled up on top of him.

Richie thawks him with a pillow.

But it’s not like he can stop him, really.

It’s hard to stop Seth from doing something when he really wants to.

*

Seth grabs him in between classes, comes up from behind as Richie exits his history class. Like he was waiting there, for for the bell ring, standing outside the door like he was expecting the changing of the guard.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Richie asks, but Seth tugs him along by the arm without responding. There’s a piece of paper in his hand that Richie can’t read until he Seth drags him to the boy’s bathroom in the 3rd hallway: _out of order_ , scribbled sloppily in blank ink.

The bathroom is dirty, gives their own place a run for the money. Oppressive fluorescent lights that hurt his eyes, stinks like shit and blood and pot smoke, graffiti on the walls and yellow-tinged toilets. There’s a kid in the bathroom when they walk in, a young and pimply faced freshman that’s taller than Seth, but skinner too, taking a piss at the urinal.

“Get out,” Seth orders, loud and fierce enough so the kid jumps at the intrusion.

“I’m not done,” the kid says, stammering, the stream of urine paused as he speaks, like he can’t piss while he’s talking.

“Can’t you read the sign, it says out of order,” Seth snaps, taking a threatening step closer, “so get out.”

Seth doesn’t wait for a response; he just grabs the kid by the scruff of his neck and the back of his jacket, dragging him out, the kid haphazardly trying to zip up his pants as Seth shoves him out the door.

“You could be more subtle,” Richie says, but he’s can’t help the quirk in his lips, watching Seth corral some asshole. He’s not sure what it says about him, that he enjoys watching it, knowing what his brother can do. Richie wonders what freshman must think, if knows their names, if he’ll remember their faces, if he should be worried about that guy.

“I got a plan,” Seth says to him, grinning wide and sharp, advancing on him.

“Your plans can use some work,” Richie says, but Seth pushes him back, until Richie is pressed backwards against the sink, cold porcelain pressing through his shirt from the back. It hardly matters that it’s uncomfortable, because Seth kisses him, hard, almost angry, mashing his lips against his. Richie’s mouth opens up for him on instinct, lets his tongue slip inside and lets Seth push his body tight against his, hands cupping his face and Richie’s hands on his waist to hold him closer. Richie thinks they might merge, feeling every corner of his body press against his, Seth’s skin warm and pressed flush against him.

“What are you doing?” Richie asks, murmurs the words, eyes wide open. He doesn’t close his eyes (he never closes his eyes when Seth kisses him, just lets him fill up his whole line of sight; it’s better that way).

“I’m bored,” Seth says, his eyes gleaming bright. “This is better than me starting a fight, yeah?”

It figures. Boredom is a dangerous thing with Seth (for them both).

“You can’t wait until we get home?” Richie says, putting his hands on Seth’s shoulders, but he can’t make himself push him off, despite the warning alarms ringing in his ears. He just leans closer, his nose brushing up against Seth’s, anchored to him.

“I wanna suck you off now,” Seth says, “fulfill a fantasy before I drop out.” One hand slips down Richie’s chest, belly, until it’s resting on his cock over his pants, and Richie shivers.

“Here?” he asks. _Not here_ , he wants to say, pulse pounding in his throat. “Someone could walk in,” Richie says, voice wavering, because Seth presses his hand against Richie’s cock, pressure squeezing lightly, Richie squirming at the feeling.

“I don’t care,” Seth says, not bothering to convince him that no one will. “Do you care, brother?” There’s a certain finality to it, the sheer lack of caring in Seth’s voice, that’s almost freeing, intoxicating—like they could get away with anything.

Richie doesn’t care either; he never has. It’s hard to care about anything except Seth. He just thinks more than Seth, sees more possibilities—someone catches them, someone not family like Eddie, and it’s all over, Seth goes away. They get split up and sent to some piss-poor shrink and put in the system, trying to fix them, but it’s too late for them both, there’s no fixing this.

“I put the sign up, anyway,” Seth explains, undoing Richie’s jeans, tugging off his belt until his pants pool around his knees. “No one’s coming. We’re alone.”

“People ignore the signs, Seth—”

“I love your cock,” Seth interrupts it, smiling hungrily at him. Richie squirms, shifts under Seth’s body, under that smile. Seth cups his cock, lightly, barely touching it, but he can feel his palm and fingers around his cock through his briefs.

“How big it is, you know, how _proportional_.” Seth licks his lips when he says that, _proportional_ , like it’s a filthy word, something obscene. “I wanna suck it. I love trying to fit it all in my mouth and how it just won’t. You like how wide your cock stretches my mouth?”

“Shut up,” Richie snaps. He can’t stop staring at Seth (he never could), the way his hair falls into his eyes as he looks down, the dirt smudged on his skin, the spit-shiny pink lips and tongue.

Seth pulls his underwear down and leaves Richie just dressed in a buttoned up shirt, cool air hitting his cock and Seth’s warm hand hovering over it.

“It feels good though,” Seth says, voice dropped to an almost whisper, rough and heavy on his tongue as he smirks lewdly at him. “Even if you choke me. I like taking you all the way in. You taste good, salty, but good. I love the way your cock leaks all over my lips—”

“I said shut up,” Richie says, in a voice that waverers too much to be taken seriously, his words shaking on his tongue as Seth touches him.

“You wanna make me?” Seth asks without missing a beat. His fingers linger on Richie’s cock, tips lightly stroking the shaft up and down. Not enough for any real friction. Just enough to make Richie whimper, but Seth knew that’d happen.

“Seth,” Richie moans.

“C’mon,” Seth says. He grabs Richie’s hand and brings it up to his hair. Richie’s fingers curl in Seth’s hair, lightly tugging on the locks like he can’t help himself, like Seth’s long hair just begs for it, feeling the pressure on his scalp. “Make me.”

Richie pulls his hair, tilts his head back so his brother’s throat is exposed. He wants to bite down on his neck and feel his flesh in his mouth, feel Seth moan when he bites too hard and beg him to leave another mark. He can see the veins and muscles in his throat straining, see his brother’s mouth curved up in a smirk.

He strokes Seth’s hair with his other hand, down the side of his face and Seth’s eyes slide shut when Richie touches him, closing softly as he shudders. “Make me,” Seth pants, like a challenge, all sharp and breathless. Richie pushes down, down on his head and then slides his hand to his shoulder to shove, but Seth falls to his knees in a dirty school bathroom at the slightest pressure.

Seth buries his face in Richie’s crotch, pubic hair and cock. He mouths at his cock, tongue hot and slick, kisses it like he can’t help himself, eyes rolled back while Richie’s are wide open. Richie’s hands shake and hover over Seth’s face, cupping his cheekbones hard enough so his nails scrape against his skin. There’s always something in the way Seth touches him that’s just too much to handle, makes him feel like crawling out of his skin and digging his nails like hooks in Seth’s shoulders.

“C’mon, c’mon, suck it, _Seth_ ,” he moans, pushing at the back of Seth’s head, tugging him closer. Seth opens his mouth then, like waiting for his cue, for Richie to give the go ahead, sliding his mouth over Richie’s cock, slow and sure.

Richie groans like something has been cut loose inside of him. “Fuck,” he says, his stomach flip flopping, the sight almost always too much for him. Seth’s right, of course; he loves watching his cock disappear into his brother’s mouth, the way it stretches it out, lips spread obscenely wide and cheeks hollowed out.

Richie’s not sure whose fault it is, his or Seth’s—if it’s Richie pushing his cock too deep in Seth’s mouth or Seth going too quick, too eager, but he ends up choking on Richie’s cock and pulling off with a grimace.

Richie feels a faint, muted sense of worry, one that’s almost faded entirely away by now. Richie should tell him to _stop, ease up, don’t do that_ , he knows. He knows it like a predetermined script, a list of instructions given at birth— _don’t fuck your brother’s mouth_. He knows that but he doesn’t care enough. Seth’s mouth is all shiny and slick with spit and precome and Richie likes the sight of it too much.

“Sorry,” he says, fingers stroking the corner of Seth’s mouth. Seth glances up as he licks the tip of Richie’s cock, tongue spreading precome over the smooth head, gleaming wetly. It looks like he’s licking a goddamn lollipop, and feels so much better, hot warmth flaring and curling in his belly and spine, cock throbbing and heart pounding with _want_ in his chest. He could watch Seth cover his cock in slow, dragging licks until he comes.

He curls his fingers tighter in Seth’s hair, tight enough to hurt, mouth gone dry.

“Gonna come for me?” Seth asks, muffled a bit because he’s still licking him.

“Didn’t I say shut up?” Richie asks and Seth laughs, grins up at him, warmth spreading in in Richie’s chest at the sound, feeling stupidly light headed, can’t think right.

Seth wraps his lips around his cock again and sucks slowly this time, moaning when he does, eyes flickering up at Richie like he’s waiting for something. Richie fucks into his brother’s mouth, trying not to push too deep, not too fast, but he cant help it—too warm, too tight around him—and Seth just lets him, relaxes his throat and groans when Richie’s cock pushes in and slides out, a hand wrapped around the base to ease it. Richie gets transfixed by the way Seth’s throat works, swallowing around his cock as he sucks and lets Richie push until it hits the back of his throat and he pulls back.

It doesn’t last long. Richie doesn’t last long. He comes too quick (they’re teenagers; they always come too quick, not sure how to make it last, prolong the feeling), heat and a shuddering, twisting sensation coiling in in body and exploding outwards, his knees shaky. He doesn’t get the chance to warn Seth before he does it, just make a choked, strangled noise, but Seth already knows all of his tells. He looks up at him, eyes dark and cheeks flushed as Richie watches his cock disappear in and out, watches Seth when he moans and come leaks from his mouth, pulling off just in time to watch one last spurt of white hit his chin.

“Sorry,” Richie tries to apologize, cheeks burning.

“Fuck you,” Seth says while smiling at him, because he knows he doesn’t mean it.

Seth’s a mess when they’re done, lips swollen and panting heavily in tandem with Richie, come and spit running sloopy down his chin. He doesn’t wipe it off and Richie can’t stop staring, his hand stroking Seth’s hair back.

*

“No one saw us,” Seth tells him on the way home, some strange kind of easy confidence in his voice. His shoulders brush his with every step, each time they touch making Richie’s skin pebble with goosebumps, still shaky from the blowjob even if it was hours ago.

Richie doesn’t say anything. His arms are still trembling. He spent the rest of the school day trying to focus but twitchier than usual, paranoid. He wants to do it again, repay the favor, but he feels like everyone can see, like there’s a sign on his back, _my brother sucked me off at lunch time_. Like someone will look at Seth’s swollen lips or Richie’s unusually mussed hair and just fucking _know_.

“Hey,” Seth says and stops walking, grabbing Richie by the shoulders. One hand at first, then two, turning to face him. He pushes Richie against a telephone pole, and Richie spares a thought to the gum stuck to the pole behind him, that’s now going to get on his back, dirtying his clothes once more, before he wonders if Seth is going to kiss him, right here.

He thinks he’ll let him.

Seth doesn’t kiss him, though. He meets Richie’s eyes, brown on blue, like he can hold him still through the power of his gaze, don’t even need to have his hands on Richie, except for how he wants to touch him and how Richie wants to be touched.

“No one saw us, okay, brother? I promise you,” he says, reassuring. “I know you worry your big, pretty head when shit’s not meticulously planned weeks in advance, but trust me, brother, I got our backs.”

Seth’s more relaxed than he is, less worried, less terrified someone will come and wreck this all for them, rip them out of the small, fragile world they’ve built for themselves.

(maybe that’s because Richie killed Ray, but all Seth knows is that he got lucky one day, that they both got unbearably lucky that their dad just happened to fall asleep with a lit cigarette—but Richie knows even drunk, Ray Gecko wasn’t that incompetent).

But Richie nods—Seth has a way of making him believe in him, and making everyone else believe his pretty, lying mouth.

Seth’s mouth bursts into a grin and he pats him on the cheek, fingertips warm against his cheekbones, Seth’s body temperature always running high. “And if anyone did see, we’ll kick their asses.”

 _That won’t work_ , Richie thinks, the only sure way to make sure no one tells is a scorched earth policy—the only reason he knows Eddie won’t do anything is mutually assured destruction, no chance of Eddie Gecko, any Gecko, turning them over to foster care and drawing attention to himself—but he smiles back anyway. “It's you and me, right?”

They stop on the convenience store on the way home and Seth shoplifts a few packets of ramen, sour worms and some cokes. It’s a bit of a heavy take, pushing it, but the clerk doesn’t rat them out. She’s some twenty something, messy haired college student that hates her job and doesn’t give a fuck about some teenager shoplifting. She caught them a few times, Seth ready with his knife in a backpocket and Richie’s heart pounding, but she rolled her eyes, saying _whatever, I don’t get paid enough for this shit, just don’t take anymore than I do_.

It’s almost like a little, unspoken arrangement. They won’t tell if she won’t, so they just take a little bit at time.

Even so, Richie keeps thinking about safe in the back of the store, where all the money is kept. He’s seen it before, in glimpses, Seth distracting the clerk while he takes a glance, wishing he could get a closer look at it.

Seth drags him along home though, hand in his, tossing him the packet of sour worms as they exit the store. Richie shares the red-orange ones with him later, and blows him on their bed when he gets home, his mouth tasting of sour sweet and leaving a trail of it down his chest as Richie kisses his way down, from bruised collarbone to pink nipples, down his stomach and finally his cock.

Seth doesn’t do his homework that night and Richie doesn’t try to force him, doesn’t have the energy for it, still feeling slack from the blowjob as he tries to do his trig homework. He feels like a shitty brother, for blowing his brother instead of making him do his homework, but Seth is less than a year younger than him and Richie isn’t going to hold his hand through school.

One time, he tried to tell Seth that he’s too young for this—too young to be kissing and touching each other and jerking each other off under the covers—and Seth screwed up his face in a scowl, glaring at him, pissed as shit for daring to point out his age. _You’re only ten months older, dickbrain, what infinite fucking wisdom do you have that I don’t have?_

Richie can list off all the things he knows that Seth doesn’t, all the things he’s better at, but he still doesn’t know that answer.

*

Seth gets into a fight at school.

Richie knows it without anyone telling him, knows that it’s Seth when he sees the crowd of students, like a stone sinking in his gut ( _it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last_ ).

The mob of students in the parking lot shout and scream for violence and blood, _give it to him_ and _kick his ass_ , and Richie’s sure they’re not rooting for Seth (no one roots for Seth)—jeering and cheers, mocking and taunts, that just dissolve into loud feral noises, like a mob of wild animals more than a crowd of students (everyone wants a piece, raw and bloody; no one really cares to stop the fight).

It’s all white noise to him. It’s suffocating. The energy of it feels like it’s strangling, choking him, turned outwards into violence, bloodthirsty crowd infecting him until he can hardly breathe. The crowd makes him—not _nervous_ , but jittery, too alive and twitchy inside his skin, like he’s a trapped wild animal in a cage, his heartbeat thrumming like a guitar’s strings being pulled and released inelegantly. He can barely push his way past the crowd, but he shoves the bodies aside, cuts a path towards Seth like nothing else matters.

One girl standing in the front has a cell phone out, texting on it. Richie wouldn’t care until he hears her say mutter Seth’s name, mutter to herself what she’s texting— _that gecko frosh is causing trouble, you gotta come here and watch this shit, it’s amazing_ —and Richie grabs it on blind instinct and throws it far away, hoping it lands and cracks on the pavement. 

She shouts at him ( _you’re such a freak_ , she says and he doesn’t know her, doesn’t care but he’s heard those words before from other people— _you’re such a fucking twisted little freak, Gecko_ , ugly and condemning), but he’s gone by then, pushing and shoving to make his way towards his brother.

“Seth!” he shouts, when he’s at the ring. He doesn’t think Seth hears him, not over the fists landing and the shouts of everyone else, over the pounding of blood in his ears. The guy is bigger in Seth, more bulky and muscular; it’s not a fair fight.

Richie’s fist clenches up tight with how badly he _wants_ —wants to step in and join Seth, land kicks while Seth punches until the guy is curled up on the floor and drooling blood. The two of them could do it, easily, _we’re the Gecko brothers_ , and Richie doesn’t even know what he did to deserve this, but he knows it’d be right, regardless, for various definitions of right. It’d be _fitting_.

His heart pounds loudly in his throat until he can’t hear anything else, just the ugly smacking sounds of fists meeting skin. A fist connects with Seth’s cheek and bloody spittle flies to the ground from his brother’s mouth and before Richie can get them both in trouble (before he tackles his attacker, because Richie is bigger, stronger, and people seem to forget that), Seth spits blood at his attacker, droplets staining his cheek and face.

The guy screams and worries about potential infections, about blood in his mouth. Richie worries about Seth getting a tooth knocked loose.

“Seth!” he shouts, his voice hoarse, out of breath as he’d been in a fight as well. He clasps Seth by the shoulders, grabbing him with both hands like he could somehow hold him back. Seth tenses, then relaxes when he notices it’s just Richie, his body rising and falling under his hands. Seth turns and cocks his head when he sees him, like an invitation, grinning viciously at him with bloodied teeth.

Seth’s eyes are dark and hooded, pupils blown wide. For a moment, Richie forgets this is a fight, that there’s anyone else around but them, frozen struck by the look in Seth’s eyes, wild-eyed.

The other student tries to take a swing at him. Seth kicks him in the balls first. The student that Richie still doesn’t recognize doubles over the ground, whimpering, hands cupping his balls. It’s a satisfying sound, Richie has to admit. He’s lucky Seth wasn’t wearing his steel-toed combat boots, really.

Fight’s over.

The crowd rears back, looking at them both like they’re monsters. Seth’s fight becomes Richie’s fight; Seth’s battles are always his.

“C’mon, c’mon, _c’mon_ ,” Richie hisses, dragging Seth away, hands gripping his shoulders like a falcon's claws. Seth goes willingly, puts up no resistance, letting himself be dragged off. He’s breathing hard but laughing too, whispering _did you see that shit to him, huh, Richie, huh?_

Richie snarls a _shut up_ , suddenly angry, something hot curling in his veins, like he wants to punch something too but he’s lost his chance and Seth thankfully doesn’t say anything else.

He lets go of Seth when they get far enough, far enough so the school’s out of sight and they’re just walking down an empty street, cutting across a park. This isn’t the way home, out of the way, the wrong direction.

Seth falls into step next to him, matching every angry, harsh step. He’s walking too fast, he knows, like he’s trying to burn out and outrun the fuse of anger lighting up in him, holding his body together in a tight rigid line and hunched shoulders that hurts to maintain.

“I’m fine, by the way,” Seth says, still a note of mirth in his voice, teasing him. Seth in step beside him like less of a shadow and more of a double, individual foot steps blending in together into one sound. “You should see the other guy—well, you did. The asshole had no clue how to throw a punch, it was hilarious, he punched me then cried because his fist hurt. I think he broke his thumb.”

He laughs then, and Richie doesn't think, too inflamed to think, just acts, his body driving him into Seth on instinct, shoves Seth against the cross wire fence of the baseball field next to the park. He puts his hands on Seth’s shoulder, slides on up to cup his chin and look at him, tilt his head back to see where he’s hurt, his thumb on Seth’s bottom lip, blood smearing on the pad of his thumb. He puts his other hand on his face, hovering over the swollen black eye, dark bruising on pale skin, just careful enough not to touch.

“I’m fine,” Seth says, gently touching Richie’s hand, the one on his face, holding his wrist. His thumb presses down on his pulse there, between the veins. Seth has a split lip, but his teeth are bloody too, stained as he talks. “I just bit my cheek, is all.”

Richie’s fingers linger on his lip, pressing into the cut on it like he’s trying to make sure it’s there. It just makes blood well out and Richie lets go, his hand lingering around the bruising over his eye. It’s not bad, they’ve both had worse, but he accidently smears a spot of blood over it. Seth winces, brushing too close to the bruised flesh, but he’s smiling at him, in some kind of pained, bloodied mouth grimace. It’s not pretty but it makes his insides twist up anyway, all scrambled up.

“See?” Seth says, patting Richie on the cheek. “Right as rain, brother. Don’t even need stitches.”

“You’re gonna get yourself fucking expelled,” Richie hisses.

Seth wipes his mouth, smears blood all over his bottom lip and chin. Richie stares at it for too long. He wants to wipe it off, like a decent big brother, take care of him, but he also wants to lean down and kiss him, until he can taste Seth’s blood in his mouth as well. They get blood everywhere, the two of them.

“You think that’ll do it?” Seth asks, grin broadening.

Something cracks in his head, like a wire snapping, and Richie pushes Seth back against the fence, shoving violently, wire digging his brother’s back, one hand still on his face. Seth’s grin doesn’t falter but his eyes flicker, leaning his head back against the steel, tilted up to look up at him, chin jutting like a dare, like saying _I fucking dare you_ , but he’s not sure what he’s daring him to do.

“Is that what you want?” Richie asks, voice shaking, his jaw twitching.

“You know what I want—”

“Do you want to get expelled?” he says, and then he can’t stop, his words fast and just spilling out of his mouth, angry and shaking. “For social services to wonder why a fifteen-year-old kid keeps getting into fights? To ask about your bruises? For that guy’s parents to press charges? Do you want to let the system come and find us and figure out we’re living in a scammed apartment on our own? Do you know what they’ll to us do then?”

_Split us apart, stick us in different foster homes. Wards of the state._

Richie shoves Seth hard against the fence, enough so it must hurt, his mind filled with thoughts of foster care, knowing he’ll never get to keep Seth if that happens, never be able to hold on tight enough. Seth’s smile drops. Richie’s not sure he meant to shove him, but it doesn’t feel good. He’s shaking and panting, too.

Social services never came for them before, not when they were small and had bruises and broken bones, not when it would have made a difference, but it’d be just their luck, for the system to get involved when they least want it, when Ray’s already dead and gone.

“You should hear the shit they say about you,” Seth spits out, a low growl in his voice like he can’t contain it. Blood drips from his lip as they curl into a vicious sneer. Richie keeps looking at it, the dip in the center, his pink lips redder than normal, the cut running down the side of it.

“I don’t care, that shit doesn’t matter,” Richie says. He has his hands in Seth’s shirt, fingers curling into the cloth. He’s heard it before— _freak and faggot and retard_ ; heard it from his father first, knew what those words meant before he knew how to tie his shoes, and then heard it from his classmates and the occasional teacher when they thought he was out of earshot. It’s not like he needs to be protected from it, not anymore.

“It does to me!” Seth shouts, shoving at Richie finally, pushing against his chest, but when Richie steps away, Seth just pulls closer, standing too close to Richie so it almost hurts when his voice hits his ears, too loud for him.

He pushes again, pushing away and then grabbing on to Richie’s jaw like he’s changed his mind. Seth’s mouth twists into something ugly. Spit and blood getting on Richie’s face when he talks. “It fucking matters to me, alright, you shit?”

“Seth, I—”

“You think I can just stand and listen to some asshole talk trash about my brother?” He says through gritted bloody teeth. “You think I can do that and let them get away with it? You think I’m ever going to be _sorry_ for that?”

This close, the hand on Richie’s face feels like something wrapping around his heart, reaching into his chest to squeeze it too tightly. Seth is shaking, and angry still, eyes bright and shiny.

Richie’s not sorry either (he’s never been sorry—not for setting their father on fire, not for anything else).

Richie shakes his head but doesn’t respond, his anger slowly beginning to deflate (it’s not as if he’s stopped being worried; there’s just nothing he can say, he can’t tell Seth no when he’s done the same).

He puts his hand on the back of Seth’s neck, rubbing his fingers there, against the warm, sweaty skin, the hairline and the curls that hit his fingers. Seth pants and breathes in deep, then eventually leans into the touch, eyes closing shut. They don’t say anything else.

Later, Richie cleans the blood off Seth in their bathroom; he doesn’t know what to say, how to say what he feels—he’s never been good with words the way Seth is, doesn’t have that gift—but he presses a kiss to Seth’s bloodied mouth, a kiss that’s gentler than either of them truly are, and hopes that should say _thank you_.

*

They climb up to the top of the roof in their apartment complex, picking the roof access lock and dragging a blanket to wrap themselves in—a ratty old woolen thing this close to just coming apart, held together by a few threads, a cigarette burn hole in the center from when Richie was careless once—and a case of beer they stole from a convenience store. They sit near the edge of the roof, both of them with their backs to the ledge on the dirty floor, looking up at the setting sun and the city lights in the distance.

Seth’s black eye is healing, discoloration lighter and more yellowish now. So is the split lip, almost gone. He got detention for it, every day after school for the rest of the school year, ensuring Richie will wait in the library for two hours after school every day as well, hoping Seth doesn’t get himself in more trouble with his inability to sit still. 

_Fucking lucky_ , if you ask Richie, only reason he got off light is because it was technically off school grounds. _Lucky no one pressed charges_ , but the student Seth attacked was bigger and taller and older, a senior, and that would have been humiliating.

“My birthday’s coming up,” Seth says, handing him a bottle, letting the words hang there in the air for Richie to process.

Richie pops the cap open but doesn’t take a swig.

It’s a few weeks from now. Richie’s not sure what to get him just yet--they don’t have much in the way of possessions and they tend to value food over toys, but maybe Richie will steal that fancy car with Seth for his birthday, the thrill of the theft being gift enough for Seth. For once, though, Richie’s not looking forward to Seth’s birthday like usual.

(Their birthdays used to pass unnoticed, except by them, but neither of them were going to tell Ray what day it was, didn’t want to give him another reason to get pissed off. Birthdays were better spent with him passed out drunk, in relative peace)

“What do you want to do?”

Seth shrugs. “I don’t know, man. Steal a cake? Sneak into a movie? Maybe one of the theaters is holding some marathon special.”

“We can probably do something else too,” Richie says, managing to smile. “Sixteen should be a big deal, shouldn’t it?”

Seth smirks, devious gleam in his eye. “A five star lobster dinner instead of greasy pancakes?”

They’d never blend in at that kind of restaurant. Don’t talk right. Don’t walk right. Richie doesn’t even think they own nice clothes. They’d stick out like a bunch of low rent sore thumbs, but he matches Seth’s smirk anyway. “Give me a couple of weeks, I can get the money for that. Or someone’s credit card.”

“ _We_ ,” Seth emphasizes, drawing out the word. “ _We_ can get the money for that, Richie.”

“It’s _your_ birthday, Seth.”

Seth grins, tugging on his bottom lip, chugs down a bottle of beer. “Whatever. Sweet sixteen, brother,” he says, in a low smoky voice that always makes Richie’s insides squirm.

He smiles, or tries to. He’s always liked Seth’s birthdays, more than his own—that one time of the year when Seth catches up to him, and they’re the same age, sharing the same space in time—almost like they’re the same person, standing in the same temporal location, merging into one for a precious few months. It’s like he’s a train, and Seth is running alongside him, drifting behind but catching up for a little of the way. For a couple of months, they’re the same age, like some grand equalizer realized they should have been born closer together, not allowed to be that far apart from each other, even if it’s just less than a year. Always in step, always within reach.

There’s a story about this, he’s sure, but he hasn’t seen the movie yet.

He can’t pull a convincing smile. They both know what sixteen means to Seth—freedom—and what it means to Richie—not freedom, that’s for sure, but there’s only so many times he can say an _education is important_ before he realizes Seth’s not listening).

“You know, I’m not going to drop out right away,” Seth says gently, his expression softening. He lowers his voice and scoots closer to him, shoulder to shoulder. “I’ll finish up the year with you.”

“That’s real nice of you, Seth,” Richie says dryly, hands tightening uselessly on the bottle as he drinks, alcohol burning his throat and making him cringe.

He doesn’t say, _would be nicer if you stayed the whole four years with me._

That’s a stupid reason to be mad, over simply not having Seth with him, a stupider reason than Seth not getting his education, than Seth squandering one of the very few things they don’t have to fight for tooth or nail. But it bothers him more than anything, they’re supposed to be in this together. _I got your back, buddy_.

“It’s not a big deal, you know,” Seth tells him quietly.

“What isn’t?”

“You know,” he says, putting his chin on Richie’s shoulder. “Dropping out of a school. We’re fucked over for it anyway.”

Richie doesn’t answer. He fumbles with his lighter, missing it on the first few tries before he finally lights the flame. His hands still tremble as he tries to light the cigarette.

It must be the alcohol, making him shaky. Truth be told, he’s never been much of a drinker. Seth could drink like a fucking pro, been sneaking beers out of Uncle Eddie’s fridge since they were ten, before they got their own place, but Richie never got the taste for it.

( _maybe you’d like one of those girly drinks_ , Seth told him once, smirking— _like a cosmopolitan or some shit. Richie punched him in the arm_ )

Richie blows a stream of smoke out of his mouth—that’s a better burn than the beer, more warm and comforting, all the way down to his insides and limbs, spreading out, like the smoke was a living thing coating his insides.

“It’s not as if you’re dropping out too, right?” Seth asks, but he knows this already. There’s no point in asking. “So why bother? If you have the high school diploma, I don’t need it. I can just rely on you, buddy.”

That’s how they always been; whatever Seth doesn’t have, Richie does. Whatever Richie isn’t good at, Seth is.

“You can work on getting your high school diploma and all that jazz, and I’ll work on figuring out how to get us more money—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Richie says.

It goes quiet for a bit, between them at least—down below the cars are honking and people are running, walking about in the street. The sun’s gone down and the streetlights are shining down on them; it’s too foggy for stars, too many lights, too much smog.

Seth rests his body against his, silent for once, nudging his face against Richie’s shoulder. Richie doesn’t want to look at him but he leans in anyway, his body seeking the comfort even when he’s frustrated.

Freshman year of high school—while Seth was in his final year of middle school—was rough on both of them, Richie lost without his brother, but he managed. They make do, they always have, one way or another.

It’s not like he can stop Seth, when it comes to something he wants to do.

Richie takes a long drag and blows it out, a grey cloud out in front of him dissipating.

“I’ll get the GED, if that’ll make you happy,” Seth whispers.

Richie keeps smoking. “You damn well fucking better.”

Seth laughs. It’s a fond, warm sound that reverberates through his chest. Like Richie had never snapped at him.

“See, it’ll be okay, brother.” He puts a hand on his shoulders, rubbing his fingers into his flesh and kneading. Richie had been tense; doesn’t matter how much he’s smoking, his spine’s a rigid line. He hadn’t even realized. “It’ll be nice, you can come from school and I’ll have lunch all ready for you, and waffles in the morning.”

It’s a _ludicrous_ image, Seth can’t even do the laundry without being told ten million times; they’d live in absolute squalor if it weren’t for Richie, but Richie chews on his bottom lip, cigarette loose in his hand, thinking. Pictures himself waking up to the smell of instant coffee and Seth having packed a lunch for him for school. Imagines Seth waiting at home for him, already dressed to head to the closest dive bar and try to come up with the rent money for the month. Pictures his brother, sprawled out on their bed, sleeping in past noon but awake enough to push Richie against the wall and kiss him hard when he comes home.

It’s a fantasy, that’s all, he tells himself. “Like you’d ever wake up that early,” Richie chuckles.

“I could,” Seth says, voice dropping. “You know I could. I could have myself all lubed up for you when you come home, too.”

“Oh god, shut the fuck up,” Richie says, ducking his head. His cheeks are burning and he doesn’t know why. “Don’t say that shit.”

“Then what, Richie? What do I say?”

He doesn’t understand the question. He turns to glance down at Seth, their heads pressing together accidentally. The sun is fading away and Seth is bathed in artificial streetlight, face bruised and mouth popped in a grin even as he lifts his eyebrows in question.

“Just don’t talk about that, not now.”

Seth nods and puts an arm around him. No space at all between them anymore, just the way it’s always been. “We’re gonna do better than that anyway,” he whispers in his ear, low voice but something firm and solid as he speaks, like he’s telling Richie an universal truth.

Richie knows what he’s talking about but he plays along anyway. “Better than what?”

“Better than high school. Better than dad,” Seth says. He’s said this before, like a bedtime story they tell themselves to keep them warm at night. They aren’t gonna be their dad, that small time hood who died because he was too drunk and pathetic to know his eldest was dousing him with lighter fluid.

“We’re gonna be professional fucking thieves, brother.”

The energy in his voice seeps into Richie’s veins like he’s chugged a little too much alcohol as well, Seth easier to get drunk off than anything else. Being a _professional fucking thief is dangerous_ , he knows, _bank robbery is a federal crime_ , there’s a reason dad and Uncle Eddie stuck to small time stuff; it’s not the same as shoplifting or sneaking food from a bakery or stealing a car. These are the big leagues and his heart pounds, chest throbbing, smoke and alcohol going to his head and blood rushing.

At the end of the day, they’re both going to be career criminals, high school diploma or no. It feels like sheer inevitability, like their father and his parents before him, and the only thing to do is _be fucking better_ than anyone else.

“I’m kinda casing a place,” Richie responds.

Seth lights up, eyes widening in delight, arm squeezes around him. “Really?”

It’s just a convenience store. He’s not sure how professional robbing a convenience store is—that shit’s for amateurs.

But a Gecko’s gotta start somewhere.

“Well, it’s not like you’re going to do it.”

“You’re a dick,” Seth says, laughing, leaning in to kiss him.

His lips just linger on his for a moment, tongue darting out to touch Richie’s bottom lip. When Seth kisses him, it feels like he’s inhaling him. Seth is a little too drunk to kiss properly, but it still makes Richie feel like he might fall over, fall straight into him and never get up.

“You taste like shit,” Seth says when he breaks away, giggling. Richie is dizzy, like a contact high.

“Smoker’s mouth,” Richie says by way of explanation. “You know that.”

“It’s alright,” Seth says. There’s smoke in his mouth too, shared with Richie, blowing it out in his face. It makes his eyes sting behind his glasses and his stomach do flip flops. They share so much. He can’t think of a thing they don’t share.

Seth takes another chug of his beer, Richie paying too close attention to the way his lips wrap around the bottle, the column of his throat as he tilts his head back.

“I like it,” Seth says, “you know I do, right, brother?” he adds, kissing him again.

Seth drops the bottle as he palms Richie’s face. It spills on the ground, staining their blanket, but that’s okay. Richie likes it, too—the smoke, the way Seth tastes, all bitter and sharp flavors, wet mouth against his drier one, the scabbed over part of Seth’s lip against his tongue. It’s all sharp and explosive, high city air getting to him and swirling his insides around.

“Tell me about the place you’re casing,” Seth asks when he’s half on top of him on the ground, blanket half hanging off the ledge, beer forgotten and cigarette flamed out. Richie nods, even as he just kisses Seth instead of talking, tangling his hands in his curls. Richie doesn’t care who may be watching, if the blanket falls and hits some pedestrian on the ground, tucked in their own alcove on the roof for themselves.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from the Okkervil River song, _Your Past Life as a Blast_.


End file.
